Chapter 5. Natural Systems Under Stress: Losing Soil

The thin layer of topsoil that covers the planet’s land surface is the foundation of civilization. This soil, typically six inches or so deep, was formed over long stretches of geological time as new soil formation exceeded the natural rate of erosion. As soil accumulated over the eons, it provided a medium in which plants could grow. In turn, plants protect the soil from erosion. Human activity is disrupting this relationship.

Sometime within the last century, soil erosion began to exceed new soil formation over large areas. Now, perhaps a third of all cropland is losing topsoil faster than new soil is forming, reducing the land’s inherent productivity. The foundation of civilization is crumbling. 26

The accelerating soil erosion over the last century can be seen in the dust bowls that form as vegetation is destroyed and wind erosion soars out of control. Among those that stand out are the Dust Bowl in the U.S. Great Plains during the 1930s, the dust bowl in the Soviet Virgin Lands in the 1960s, the huge one that is forming today in northwest China, and the one taking shape in the Sahelian region of Africa. Each of these is associated with a familiar pattern of overgrazing, deforestation, and agricultural expansion onto marginal land, followed by retrenchment as the soil begins to disappear. 27

Twentieth-century population growth pushed agriculture onto highly vulnerable land in many countries. The overplowing of the U.S. Great Plains during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, led to the 1930s Dust Bowl. This was a tragic era in U.S. history, one that forced hundreds of thousands of farm families to leave the Great Plains. Many migrated to California in search of a new life, a move immortalized in John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath. 28

Three decades later, history repeated itself in the Soviet Union. The Virgin Lands Project between 1954 and 1960 centered on plowing an area of grassland for wheat that was larger than the wheatland in Canada and Australia combined. Initially, the result was an impressive expansion in Soviet grain production, but the success was short-lived as a dust bowl developed there as well. 29

Kazakhstan , at the center of this Virgin Lands Project, saw its grainland area peak at just over 25 million hectares around 1980, then shrink to 15 million hectares today. Even on the remaining land, however, the average wheat yield is scarcely 1 ton per hectare, a far cry from the nearly 7 tons per hectare that farmers get in France, Western Europe’s leading wheat producer. 30

A similar situation exists in Mongolia, where over the last 20 years half the wheatland has been abandoned and wheat yields have fallen by half, shrinking the harvest by three fourths. Mongolia—a country almost three times the size of France with a population of 2.6 million—is now forced to import nearly 60 percent of its wheat. 31

Dust storms originating in the new dust bowls are now faithfully recorded in satellite images. On January 9, 2005, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released images of a vast dust storm moving westward out of central Africa. This huge cloud of tan-colored dust stretched over some 5,300 kilometers (roughly 3,300 miles). NASA noted that if the storm were relocated to the United States, it would cover the country and extend into the oceans on both coasts. 32

Andrew Goudie, Professor of Geography at Oxford University, reports that Saharan dust storms—once rare—are now commonplace. He estimates they have increased 10-fold during the last half-century. Among the countries in the region most affected by topsoil loss from wind erosion are Niger, Chad, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. In Mauritania, in Africa’s far west, the number of dust storms jumped from 2 a year in the early 1960s to 80 a year today. 33

The Bodélé Depression in Chad is the source of an estimated 1.3 billion tons of wind-borne soil a year, up 10-fold since measurements began in 1947. The 2–3 billion tons of fine soil particles that leave Africa each year in dust storms are slowly draining the continent of its fertility and biological productivity. In addition, dust storms leaving Africa travel westward across the Atlantic, depositing so much dust in the Caribbean that they cloud the water and damage coral reefs. 34

Water erosion also takes a toll on soils. This can be seen in the silting of reservoirs and in muddy, silt-laden rivers flowing into the sea. Pakistan’s two large reservoirs, Mangla and Tarbela, which store Indus River water for the country’s vast irrigation network, are losing roughly 1 percent of their storage capacity each year as they fill with silt from deforested watersheds. 35

Ethiopia , a mountainous country with highly erodible soils on steeply sloping land, is losing close to 2 billion tons of topsoil a year, washed away by rain. This is one reason Ethiopia always seems to be on the verge of famine, never able to accumulate enough grain reserves to provide a meaningful measure of food security. 36

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